On a successful destruction of another part of my childhood

I've told these stories before, but I told them long enough ago I think I can get away with telling them again. I've always had a sort of emotional attachment to The Atom, DC's Silver-age version of the Mighty Mite. One of my few memories of my father is of him reading me the origin of the Atom. And from way back then, I remembered Ray Palmer's little mnemonic for the difference between stalactites and stalagmites -

Stalactite has a 'C' in it! Let that stand for Ceiling! Stalagmite has a 'G' in it! Let that stand for ground!

Over a decade and change later, in high school Earth Science class, our teacher had just finished this really horrible story that was supposed to help us remember the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. As soon as he finished, I raised my hand, and quoted Professor Palmer's mnemonic perfectly. My teacher looked at me, and to paraphrase Robin Harris, he hung up cause he knew I was right.

So suffice to say, I know the origin of the Atom pretty well. Ray Palmer finds a piece of dwarf star matter and uses it to perfect his shrink ray. By passing sunlight through a lens he created (now with a dwarf star coating) he can shrink things, but they promptly explode due to instability. During a spelunking expedition (from which came the aforementioned mnemonic) there's a cave-in, trapping the class. He happens to have the lens with him, so he decides to sacrifice himself by using it on himself. He sets the lens between two outcroppings and aims a beam of sunlight through it. He succeeds and makes a small hole large enough to let everyone escape. With seconds to go before he expects to explode, he passes through the beam again, and is surprised and relieved to find out he is restored to normal. Apparently some water dripped onto the lens, water that passed through the walls of the cave and picked up trace minerals that somehow stabilized the shrinking process. He retrieves the lens and helps everyone escape through the opening he created. And by his next appearance he perfected the process, made himself a costume and joined the DC pantheon of heroes.

Now that's pretty much a textbook silver-age origin. A series of wild coincidences, some pseudo science and heaping helping of OH, COME ON. But it works. It's a jumping off point, it's a story that doesn't need to be addressed all that often and serves to get the hero into the costume. It's not changed one iota (which would have been a great name for the character as well) since it was written. Through Crisis and revamp, Ray's simple tale has remained unassailed. The only nod to reality it got was the space rock was now merely infused with Dwarf Star Matter, as opposed to being a solid chunk. I believe that tweak came some time back, as some clever arse noticed that a solid piece of dwarf star matter A) wouldn't exist since stars are made of incendescent gas, and B) would weigh something like 14 godzillion pounds (or 6.350293178 godzillion kilograms). But other than that, nothing.

Until yesterday, when Jeff (Sweet Tooth) Lemire all but entirely rewrote it in the Brightest Day Atom Special.

Now here's where you expect the old fart comics fan to rail and moan about change for the sake of change, and how it was perfectly acceptable before and why did it have to ruin it, yakkity schmakkity blither blather.

But here's the thing. He NAILED it. He makes several major changes, but none are negative, and none make Ray any less Ray.

Let me explain. There's a sort of paradoxical concept from literature know as the Ship of Theseus. They all center around the idea that a beloved object, over time, gets fixed, parts replaced, and eventually, there's not a bit of the original object left, but it's still that object. Terry Pratchett used the "my Grandfather's Axe" version of the story twice, once in Strata and more recently in The Fifth Elephant. The point is, you can swap out all the bits of something, but if you're careful, never lose the intrinsic…thingness of the thing.

Sometimes some comic revamps are so radical they DO lose "the thing and the whole of the thing". The threatened Fantastic Four moving to the suburbs, for example. And in most cases, the really embarrassing missteps go away, either via another revamp or just a sort of embarrassed shuffling of the feet and everyone kind of agreeing to never mention that again. But here, the changes are not outlandish, and even when they contradict previous stories, they do so in ways that interest me, and not outrage me.

Case in point - In the new origin, he perfects the shrinking process himself, as opposed to a freak accident involving dripping water. It's not as exciting and dramatic, but it actually makes Ray a BETTER scientist. He solved his own problem, as opposed to a lucky accident.

In the new origin, he already had the costume ready. Well, so what? Come on, he says it himself, you don't build a shrink ray without at least thinking of using it on yourself. And he explains that the suit is to house the shrinking apparatus and not just to save people and get babes. It's similar to the idea they tried in the Flash TV series, that the suit was originally designed to monitor his vitals and keep from overheating (tho how wearing foam rubber from head to toe keeps you from overheating is beyond me). Having his first appearance still be connected to a cave-in is a nice tip of the hat to the original story.

Jeff's also added a whole family for Ray to have sad memories about. Now to be fair, that's becoming somewhat de rigueur nowadays, as in Geoff Johns' revamps of both Green Lantern and Flash. And it seems pretty obvious to me that Ray's mysterious uncle is either...

A) His real father
B) Himself, or possibly one of his enemies (most likely Chronos or someone with access to the Time Pool) trying to make sure his eventual adulthood and shrink-ray creation goes smoothly.
C) Some mad combination of the two.

Don't get me wrong, these are pretty major changes. But like so many DC characters, The Atom went through more than a few radical changes in vector. He became a teeny-weeny John Carter Of The Front Lawn, got de-aged to a teenager, and had more shit piled onto his fragile psyche by his ex-wife than any one man deserves. Roger Stern gave him a family background in the Power of the Atom series - supposedly he's an only child. But AFAIC, since that was added DECADES after the character first appeared, it's not quite the same level of cement-solid canon as other details.

Now I won't lie to you, I REALLY liked Ryan Choi. Or perhaps more correctly, I liked Gail Simone's writing on All New Atom, and the absolutely wacky concepts she introduced. Of them all, the idea that Ivy Town, as a result of all the quantum compression, time travel and dimensional experimentation it's hosted over the years, is now parked halfway into the Outer Limits. I LOVED that. It was an easy setup for a ridiculous amount of story ideas. It's something I'd sorely love to see again.

But by re-telling Ray's origin, Jeff gives a whole new audience a chance to jump on with the character, and pretty much takes him back closer to his original concept than he's been at for quite a long time. He's more sure of himself, no more of that "size=self-esteem" crap. He's back at Ivy U, with Professor Hyatt. And he's a hero again.  These are good things.

In short, Jeff ends up with a story that is still the story my father told me.

Tell you what, Jeff...have him use the Stalactite/Stalagmite story in a future episode, and it'll be perfect.

Read More

On the result of showing a powerful man exactly how weak he is, relatively speaking

Look, there are spoilers.  Get Over It.

Simply stated, Marvel don’t know what they lost.  They canceled Paul Cornell’s thought-provoking Captain Britain book, and then it starts winning awards.  Paul jumped ship to DC, bagging an exclusive contract, and got handed Action Comics.  That’s what I call a positive career vector.


One catch: you can’t use Superman.  JMS is sending him on a little spirit quest for a year, so you’ll be writing about Metropolis without a Superman.  Now that’s the same offer made to a certain other well-known Superman-loving writer (whose name shall remain unsaid), and said writer dropped the offer like a hot rock.  But Paul saw opportunity in the scenario, and chose to talk about Metropolis’ biggest brain, Lex Luthor.

As a result of the end of the New Krypton plotline, Lex Luthor has a presidential pardon, has been re-instated as the head of Lexcorp, and odds are, with the help of a gracious media, been able to restore his reputation to the point that he’s top dog in the Big Apricot again, especially with Superman off on Walkabout. 


This is a textbook example of a first issue.  Give people a solid snapshot of the character, get a couple plot threads going, and end the issue with a SOLID cliffhanger.  Hits all the bases. 

As opposed to the last year of Superman books (which, I hasten to add, I enjoyed) where you were asked to invest in brand new characters (or in Mon-El's case, a new look at a character) this is a character everyone knows, so there's no hesitance to get over.  And still Paul shows new sides to him.

The Lois-bot just speaks VOLUMES about his fixations.  She's The One Who Got Away, and if he can't have her, he'll just build one.  He couches it in "I need a devil's advocate" but it's such an obvious bit of petulance.  LOVED it. 

I may be digging a bit deep, but I took “Spalding” as a Marx Bros reference – Geoffrey T. Spaulding had a personal assistant named Jamison in Animal Crackers. I’ve already asked Paul if his other name is indeed Jamison. Which would be awesome.  The relationship between him and Lex seems to be similar to Lord Vetinari and Drumknott in the Discworld books.  I love it.

If you want to make a comparison to Paul’s work on Doctor Who, it seems he’s playing Luthor as The Master.  He’s utterly in control in any situation, playing three games ahead, never mind three moves, and always out for himself.  He’s not been played this well in years.  Even in recent years he was leaning back to the “mad scientist” mold and away from the corporate wolf that Byrne, et al, re-molded him in.  I’m pleased that didn’t complete – I really like the idea of Luthor being a captain of industry.  It should be very difficult for Superman or anyone to touch him, as he’s the head of a company that’s “too big to fail”.

Let’s look at all the plot threads Cornell  set up in one issue, shall we?

Lex’s Quest For Fire:  He got one taste of true power, and it’s bent his brain.  Just like Virgil Samms taking one hit of Thionite while undercover and having to spend the rest of his days aching for another, Lex has fallen hard for the power that he can barely contemplate.  He’s well aware that’s it’s affecting his actions and perceptions, but he’s equally positive that he can maintain control.  Classic junkie-speak.
It’s got to be KILLING him that something could make him so off of his game.  So much so that he decides he needs a Jiminy Cricket, someone to walk (three steps) behind him and whisper “Remember, thou art mortal”.  And that brings us to…

Lois-bot built with Kryptonian tech that they don’t quite understand:  That’s just got “Lois bot out of control” painted all over it, don’t it?  Or even better, making the jump to sentience and either allowing Lex to take the relationship to another level, or the old reliable “trying to take over real-Lois’ life” story.  Either way, Robot Lois is a great swerve, since it was the one thing in the previews and Paul’s interviews that had everyone partaking in what we call in our house “The ethnic loss of all shit”.  Positively brill.

“If I got more support from your people”:  That line likely got glossed over by most folks.  Who are Spalding’s “people” exactly?  I’m thinking he’s not just referring to Lexcorp employees, or metrosexuals.  Spalding got a lot of camera time – I’m betting there’s a reason for that. 

Mr. Mind:  Come on, that was awesome.  Virtually unseen since 52, the Venusian earworm has all the makings of a major villain.  More subtle than Starro, access to alien tech, and he’s a friggin’ worm.  You started the issue not knowing who the weirdos dressed in lots from a Morrison Doom Patrol costume auction were, and you ended not know what their boss has planned.  And all along, Lex is just playing them like pan flutes.

What a lovely start. 

Read More

On the analysis of a minor change in a major character

N.B. - In the interests of full disclosure, I should clarify that I’m writing this column before I’ve read the actual issue and storyline on which I am commenting, basing my opinions solely on what has been released and leaked since last evening. This is so that I can work from the same position of no knowledge that the rest of fandom is at. Indeed, “the position of no knowledge” may be fandom’s favorite, place and show going to “missionary” and “doggie style so we can both watch X-Files”. A second, actual review of said comics and stories will follow.

Okay, you’ve all seen the new costume by now.

Okay, you’ve likely all laughed your ass off and spouted your vitriol on the Twitter.

Okay, now let’s calm down and look at this rationally.

Okay, as rationally as comics fans can.

Of the section of fandom that’s seen the new costume design, I’ll warrant about…35 percent actually read the attached articles, as opposed to those who just saw the picture and assumed the thousand words underneath were ancillary. They just flew off the handle, landed at their keyboards and screamed “childhood rape”. So for those people, here’s what those words said.

JMS’ story is based on what science fiction fans refer to as a Change War. You go back in time, change one little detail that will snowball forward and eliminate or cripple your enemy’s power base. It’s the kind of thing Booster Gold is fighting in his title. It was the plot of the last weekly title, Trinity. It’s EXACTLY what the Justice Society of America has been involved with in their book as we speak, with the final issue of the story coming out today. It’s the same plot idea behind the new Tom Strong mini series. Hell, JMS wrote a Real Ghostbusters story that did the same thing, where the guys go back in time and bust the three ghosts before they can scare Scrooge straight. So this is not a bold new idea. But like all, ideas, great things can be done with it, depending on who’s at the wheel.

Now in Wonder Woman’s case, the “one little detail” isn’t all that little. 20 years ago, Paradise Island was destroyed. Princess Diana was smuggled off the island to keep the line of Amazons alive, and now in the “present” of this wildly alternative timeline, the Amazons are a ragtag handful of warriors scattered across the globe. That’s present in which we pick up the story.

To summarize, the claim that JMS has changed Wondy’s origin and continuity is largely misleading. He’s writing a story in an alternate timeline in which events of her life are wildly disparate from the norm. It almost certainly cannot connect to the rest of the DC titles, as it would require that timeline being referenced in all the other books. It’s going to be a stand-alone story about Wonder Woman’s attempt to get her proverbial life back. Any appearances by Wonder Woman in other DC titles (and there will almost certainly be some, if only in Brightest Day and JLI:GL) will be of the “classic” Wonder Woman, and not the one we’ll be reading about in this series. That could be confusing for some readers, so odds are it won’t be done much. I’m rather curious to see what the rest of the DCU will be like in this book. Will she still be a founding member of the JLA? Will there be too many other heroes at all? Will the Max Lord incident have happened, or just end very differently? Since this is a story about Wonder Woman, I don’t know how much time will be dedicated to those questions, but I’d like to see some, at least. Part of the fun to such stories are the differences to the world made by the change.

I think the endgame of the story is fairly easy to predict, at least in broad strokes. Wonder Woman will return to mainline continuity, largely unchanged. The events in said story will have never occurred, save likely for Wonder Woman remembering them. We may see some minor tweaks to the cast, points in her life seen from a new light, but ultimately, we’ll have what Alan Moore described as “The Illusion of Change”. Like Bruce Wayne’s current apparition and return, we get a chance to enjoy something different, get reminded about what we liked about the character in the first place, and then get them back.

JMS was just recently directly involved in a storyline very similar in theme to this one. Namely, One More Day in Spider-Man. A minor (yet to be explained) change in Mr. Parker’s past was made, resulting in his marriage to Mary Jane Watson having never occurred, resulting in a great deal of his past adventures occurring in ways of varying variance. The way the story was finally done was so unacceptable to JMS that he left the book. I don’t know if this will happen or not, but played properly, but if he chose to, this story could be a massive “So there” to Marvel, a plot that screams “HERE’S how you do this story, you clods.”

If this were anyone else writing this, I’d be rolling my eyes and walking away, waiting for the next retcon to come around. But JMS is one helluva writer. I have no doubt JMS' story will be well written, and that I will enjoy it. Same with his run on Superman. Both stories are very bold moves to make, a real change from the status quo. In both cases, he’s taking the characters off on their own proverbial spirit quest to get back to a more archetypal interpretation of the character.

But here’s the thing that has be worried.

Many Superman fans have just spent a year complaining about how the Superman titles didn’t have Superman in them. They claimed they didn’t want to read about a bunch of other characters in the books. Those who chose not to read missed out on a great bunch of stories, as I’ve talked about endlessly over the past year. But point is, they wanted to see Superman back in Metropolis, and his books, fighting bad guys and saving the world from alien invasions and the like.

DC has all but admitted they pooped the bed. Some are couching it by saying it was a mistake to do it for a whole year, some said the error lay in taking him out of all the books at once. But the point was the same – a lot of people didn’t want to read non-Superman Superman books.

So what are they doing this time? They’re taking him out of Metropolis for a year.

There’s a definition of “insanity” as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome”. They just got done saying taking Superman out of Metropolis and filling the gap with an opportunity to read about a whole bunch of other characters was a misstep. And now they’re doing it again.

Now bear clearly in mind – I enjoyed the last year of Super-titles, and I FULLY expect to enjoy this year. Paul Cornell is a stellar writer, and seeing what he has planned for Luthor and Action Comics will be a major portion of the next year. Similarly, I fully expect JMS’ Superman stories to be moving, dramatic, personal and the kind of stories you wish they wrote about Superman every day.

I also fully expect a LOT of readers to hear that top-line description – “Superman goes walkabout, Metropolis unprotected, other heroes step up to fill the gap”, think it’s New Krypton all over again, and stay away in droves. JUST like they reacted to the Wonder Woman announcement, picking out the bits they were the most incensed by and screaming “I quit comics forever”. And once again, they will be cutting themselves off from some very good books.

JMS or no, both characters have Big Uphill Battle written all over them. People who like the books are going to have a LOT of work to do to get people to get past those powerful first impressions and give them a try. So get ready for a lot of persuasive speech if you end up liking them.

Now let’s get back to The Costume.

This costume, plain and simple, is a choice designed to do exactly what it has done: spark comment. Wonder Woman has got more buzz in eighteen hours than she has had in eighteen years. Bringing in a hired gun like Jodi Picoult didn't do it; the exemplary work of Gail Simone didn't make a dent in the apathy and inertia of the comics fans.

But change the costume, do something that people can see, and post, and publish and retweet, and you've captured their attention.

The reaction to the new costume in online comics fandom has been 90%+ derision, and not without good reason. It’s a jarring change, from iconic to street thug. Comparisons to 90’s club wear are prevalent, as well as references to synonyms of the word “trollop”. But again, these are comments made not grasping the Bold New Direction of the character. If Wonder Woman were still the Princess of Paradise Island wearing that, it would indeed be laughable. But in this story, Wonder Woman was raised in New York City. So she dresses like a New Yorker. It’s more logical than it seems.

There’s no possible way the costume will stay tho. Just like her history, there are far too many dollars being made on the iconic costume in licensing alone. All the folks making lunchboxes and t-shirts don’t want to hear that costume is going away. Heck, they tried to change Batman’s costume a while back, and get rid of the trunks, making the suit a more monochromic look. Didn’t take – too many t-shirts out there.

This costume is a hot-shot, intended to draw quick and furious heat, in the hopes that people will HAVE to try the first issue, whether out of genuine curiosity or “just to see HOW bad it is”. It will go away.

Dan DiDio has gone on record as being a member of the “no publicity is bad publicity” camp. To continue the pro-wrestling metaphors, his philosophy is that whether the fans are cheering or booing, they’re up on their feet and actively participating. Right or wrong, he wants to see a reaction to what DC is doing, not just a quiet acceptance as the fans pick their books up off the racks.

Mission Accomplished.

Read More

On the Convention Wars taking an interesting turn with an unexpected success

I chose not to attend Wizard World Philadelphia this year, mainly because there was nothing going on there I was interested in. I knew that the few artists I wanted to see would likely also be at Baltimore and/or New York later in the year. Also, I, like a lot of comics fans, have been decidedly turned off by Wizard's bullying tactics against other conventions, particularly against Reed and the NY Comic Con.

This started a few years ago, when Wizard scheduled their show the same weekend at Shelly Drum's Heroes Con, a show with a long history, a stellar reputation and a tremendous amount of good will. The first year it happened, Wizard swore they were at the mercy of the convention center, this was the only weekend available, hands were tied, yadda yadda yadda. When happened a SECOND time, many eyebrows were raised. DC only decided to attend at the very last minute that year, splitting its teams to provide both shows with a fair-to-middling roster of editorial and creative talent. But the next year, with the show safely on another weekend from Heroes, DC still chose not to attend anyway. Marvel had already chosen to stop attending, claiming a desire to cut back on convention appearances altogether.

But this year, with DC and Marvel absent (indeed, I believe Zenescope was the largest comics company to be attending, based on the website), a larger list of media guests than comics, and a general sense of inertia among online comics fans, many artists are reporting that WW Philly was a rousing success, with lots of fans, all with lots of money, all willing to spend. Ethan Van Sciver reports it's his most successful show this year to date.

So...what happened?

I think there's a couple of things going on here. First off, Philadelphia does not have any other comic cons to speak of. Many--bordering on most--comic fans in the area don't have the funds or resources to get to other shows in the area like Baltimore, New York or even strong shows out in Pittsburgh. So to a degree, they're a captive audience. Back in the '90s, the company I was working for chose to run a show in Philly, even though we were based in New York, on the assumption that while Fred Greenberg was doing a good job of providing NYC with shows, no one was doing the same for Philly. And we guessed right - we drew 35,000 fans for our first (and alas, only) show, which is tremendous for the first time out of the gate. I've been saying ever since that Philly is a woefully under-served city convention-wise, and the results Wizard had this year might shine a light on this. It seems to me that like New York and many other major cites, Philly could easily support more than one major show. If a second company chose to bring a show to the town, it could do very well, and not reduce attendance for either Wizard's show or New York. In the words of Daffy Duck, "If they like that mess, they're starvin' for some real hoofin'!"

Also, Wizard has been slowly making a change in its direction with their shows. Each successive convention they run has been less purely comics and more "multi-media". By appealing to fans of TV shows and films, wrestling and MMA fans, as well as comics, they've been able to appeal to a larger range of people, and thus expanding their potential customer base. In a way they're turning into the modern equivalent of Creation Entertainment, who used to dominate the media-con landscape in the '80s and '90s, and is still doing a brisk business with their branded Star Trek, Twilight et al shows across the country. Interestingly, the reaction of science fiction fans who were used to going to fan-run conventions had the same reaction to Creation then that comics fans have of Wizard now. "Mediafen" are somewhat looked down on by other more pure/traditional Sci-Fi fans, and the shows that Wizard are putting on are getting the hairy eyeball from the comics community. But in both cases, their continuing success points to the idea that they must be doing something right, infuriating as that may be.

The other point to consider is that, as much as it galls us, the online fannish community is not neccesarily representative of comics fans in general, and really makes up only a small sliver of it. Bloggers will endlessly bemoan the fact that one book will sell like the proverbial hotcakes while their personal favorite spends most of its time on the bubble. And while the Internetigencia will pooh-pooh the lopsided guest list of the Wizard shows, SOMEBODY is lining up to see Patrick Stewart and the Iron Sheik. While the talkative and verbose upper crust of fandom will cluck their tongues at the Great Unwashed and their tastes, the selfsame Great Unwashed goes through their day blissfully unaware of the very existence of the people who are clucking. It's not that "they don't know any better" as is so often said; it's that they know what they like, and it's not really our place to lambaste them for it. I mean really, they're not putting all those reality shows on just to spite you.

When Reed started the NY Comic Con and started its march West, Wizard went into overdrive. It started buying up conventions left and right, shows of various size and regional reach. This, bear in mind, came after a period of time where they CANCELLED several of their shows for various reasons, be it lack of funds, interest or what have you. Once they started grabbing more shows, most famously Mike Carbonaro's Big Apple Convention, they started counter-programming. First they ran a show in New York that they didn't go out of their way to make clear wasn't the New York Comic Con; Reed had to skip almost a year for its show, going from February in 2009 to October in 2010. Wizard ran a show in October of 2009 to fill that gap. The show was acceptable, according to most reviews, but compared to the size and professionalism of the NYCC, it was a fart in a hurricane. Wizard next set up a convention in LA the same weekend as Reed's first show in Chicago, C2E2. The plan was to draw many of the media stars away from the Chicago show with the allure of a shorter trip. It succeeded, in that both shows had lackluster attendance, compared to what either show could have drawn if it were unopposed. That seems a rather nose-to-spite-face way of scoring a win. Wizard then announced that they'd run their Big Apple Con the SAME weekend as this years NYCC, in a facility only a few blocks up the street. They have since pulled back from that play, moving both the weekend and location, retrating to the Penn Plaza, location of most of Mike C's major shows, a facility that has gotten scathing reviews by many attendees in past years based on its age, cramped quarters and general state of disrepair.

There have been endless reports and rumors of both companies wanting to sign publishers to exclusive deals. Those stories have (AFAIK) never been confirmed, but as time has passed, fewer companies have chosen to work with both companies, the lion's share choosing to go to Reed's side of the playing field. At least as far as the public face of the two companies are concerned, Reed has had the moral high ground. They've gone out of their way to never disparage Wizard, making it very clear that the country and the market is large enough to support two companies, and hopefully more. It's been Wizard who has given the impression that the industry must "choose" between the two. But even though most have chosen Reed, Wizard has still been able to hammer out successes with their shows by basically doing what most of the comics bloggers have maintained needs doing - appealing to a larger audience and drawing in more people. They're the underdog that the smart folks don't want to win...but the majority simply don't care, as long as they get to go to a con.

So Philadelphia is in a rather sad position - filled with people happy and anxious to go to a convention, and currently being served solely by a company that has done a bang-up job of burning bridges. So Philly misses out on its chance to get a "proper" comics convention and attends one that's better than nothing, and the publishers who've decided to stop working with Wizard miss out on a chance to reach a somewhat captive audience. It seems that everyone loses in the scenario loses...except Wizard. They get a perfectly acceptable and (presumably) profitable convention, and may get the impression that they "don't need" the stuff that the publishers can provide. If the market is happy with cheap hamburger, why bother to offer expensive steak?

Philly deserves a better comics show, and I maintain the company that provides one will be richly rewarded. If Wizard can get the publishers to return, they already have a solid reputation in the city, and presumably a contract with the convention center that may preclude another comics show from getting access to it for a good number of weeks in either direction. If Reed chooses to move in, they'll be able to provide a massive show, based on the tool chest it's already assembled, but will place itself in the position that Wizard has been in, stepping into "someone else's territory", similar to the scenario in Chicago this year.

Wizard endlessly argues that there's room for two, drawing comparisons to Coke and Pepsi, Marvel and DC, et al. But what Wizard isn't mentioning is that the aforementioned companies are available all year and the customer has the choice of sampling one at one time and the other at another, or both, or neither. A convention is a static limited event, and if the choice is between two options at a similar time, it's more difficult to choose to do both. It's the reason TV networks program similar shows in the same time slot as their rival stations. They don't want to to watch BOTH shows, they want you to watch THEIR show.

I still maintain that Philly is large enough to support two major shows in a year, and indeed the rest of the country is large enough to support two major convention companies, so long as they maintain a modicum of decorum and avoid direct confrontation whenever possible. But of course, humans are involved, so that outcome is as likely as people taking turns at a hard merge on the highway or choosing to go to the next show where there's only one ticket left for the current one.

Read More

On a bit of DC Marketing that desperately needs to be done

So Geoff Johns posted this photo on his Twitter Feed of a guy's Green Lantern Tattoo.  For those too lazy to make with the clicky-linky, it's a tat of a Royal Flush poker hand, made up of GL playing cards.  Presumably, the fellow will then have Geoff's sharpie-on-skin autograph added to the tat, a practice growing in popularity.

But I got to thinking.  With the plethora of color Corps and members of same, a deck of playing cards based on the current Green Lantern Mythos could easily be produced.  With eight Corps, you could actually do two seperate decks, or one deck for a game of Cripple Mr. Onion.  But I think one deck ought to do, as a couple of the Corps don't have that many members.

Green for Clubs, Red for Diamonds, Yellow for Hearts and Black for Spades seems the most likely setup.  Violet (love) for hearts is pretty obvious too, But you can't very well leave out Yellow, and there's only four suits traditionally.  They tried to popularize five-suit poker many years back, but it never caught on.

Now in a lot of photo cards, they'll put images on each card, but IMHO that makes it slightly harder to recognize a Face card.  I prefer the numbered cards to be a number of the symbol and little else.  Maybe you could have nice art of the symbols in different quantties being generated by a Corpsmember, to get the best of both worlds.

It seems the Color Entity should go on the Ace, and the most powerful/popular member of the Corps go on the King.  So it'd be...

GREEN:
Okay, quite a bit of debate possible here. More than a few characters who deserve the Face card spots.  But how do you decide? 
Also, do you bow to the obvious gender-streotypes here and put a female in the Queen spot, or open oneself to endless snickering by putting a guy in that position?
Perhaps the best solution is to not make the choices, and going with popular characters NOT from Earth.  Luckily, there's a GL named Jack, so let's go with him, and there's no actual proof of Mogo's gender, so...
Jack - Jack T. Chance
Queen - Mogo
King - Hal Jordan (Maybe with Kyle, Guy and John in the background to shut everyone up?)
Ace - Ion

RED:
Jack - Dex-Starr
Queen - Laira
King - Atrocitus
Ace - The Butcher

YELLOW:
Jack - Despotellis (1st runner-up; Arkillo)
Queen - Kryb (1st runner-up; Lyssa Drak)
King - Sinestro
Ace - Parallax

BLACK:
Jack - Black Lantern Kal-L
Queen - Black Lantern Mera
King - Black Hand
Ace - Nekron

VIOLET (for argument's sake):
Jack - Miri Riam
Queen - Wonder Woman (1st runner-up; Fatality)
King - Carol Ferris
Ace - The Predator

And the Jokers? Well, Larfleeze, obviously, along with the Bizarro Yellow Lantern.  Tho if Avarice were a suit as well, I rather like the idea of dressing him in three different outfits (incliding a queen's robe) for the face cards.

So, DC...I'd get hopping on this.

Read More

On the experience of a voice from the past screaming at you like a homeless man on a street corner

One of the nice things about the electric-type Internet is it allows friends and relations, long ago lost to moves and parting ways, to re-acqauint with each other and restore ties, or at least share the odd witty comment on each other's walls.

And then there's the experience I just had.

Out of nowhere and with no prelude, I just got the most fascinating string of tweets from old an High School buddy. They are included below, un-edited and un-spell-checked, tweets separated by "//".

vinnie sending you a tweet last time to get your attention, then I'll let 25 more years go bye. If you want a friend ok //

but if you want to pontificate about comics, norbit, christianity and conservitive stuff, not interested. //

I sometimes wondered how we became friends in highschool at all. It really doesn't matter so take it easy, be what you want //

oh and Dr. Who really is some of the worst SciFi that they ever came up with. Look at Heinlien and Asimov if you want good.

I'll throw that again; the last time I interacted with this fella was 1984, when we graduated Chaminade High School, the school that also produced Brian Dennehy, George Kennedy, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Hughes from the Village People.(not all at once, of course)

I saw him add me as a friend on the Facebook some time back, but didn't have anything to say to him, so I didn't.  He started following me on the Twitter TODAY, followed immediately by these stream of consciousness tweets.

Now I've done some horrible things in my life (ask any McDonalds counter-person within a ten-mile radius) but I've no idea what I could have done to him to warrant this mad rambling.

The part that's fascinating is that he seems upset with me for what I'm doing and talking about now.  To the best of my awareness, I don't have a mailing list or anything that was cramming my rapier-like wit down his throat, so I'm not sure how my rampant pontification invaded his personal space.

Upon investigation, I see his twitter feed is only slightly less crazy than Yoko Ono's.  Some samples:

Where is my sanity when I worry about yesterday's thoughts?

We waste so much time with ego, anger and pride. We think the little things we do will last beyond us. We are mistaken...

If we feel we know the truth, we have nothing. It is only by "dropping all" that we have all, become all, find ground.

Thought in all actions is need until finally, thought is no longer needed.

Pain is what occurs when you allow yourself to be wrapped up in emotions and attachments...

There are times when I allow myself to take offense at things my ego points out as "offensive", and then there are times when I am well.

Anger, love, passion, all just spitting distance... First you gotta breath... Then you have to know what breathing truly is....

All this touchy-feely inspirational poster speak, and he spits vitriol at me like I was wearing a fur coat at a PeTA meeting.  I feel..oddly honored.  I mean, to be able to make such an impression on a person that he'd seek you out 25 years later to insult you...That means either I'm that impressive, or he's that impressionable.

When we were in in school together, his favorite author was Michael Moorcock, and his favorite word was (as he pronounced it) was "mye-rid".  After having him use it in a sentence, I asked, "do you mean "Myriad"?

He did.

When I showed The Wife the tweets in question, she guessed EXACTLY who sent them, having never MET the man, based SOLELY on the stories other Chaminade Men have told about him.

Out of courtesy, I won't mention his name, or actually give his twitter feed.  But if you went to school with me, you already KNOW who it is.  And you are in no way surprised.

Read More

On a glorious return to the 30th century

OK, fine, 31st century, you nitpicking yahoos...

After months of anticipation, years of setup, and decades of patient waiting from hardcore fans, Paul Levitz has relaunched the Legion of Super-Heroes with a brand new number one.  It carries on from the new iteration of the team that Geoff Johns et al has been writing for the last few years, as far back as the Lightning Saga.  The original Legion is back, their adventures with Superboy are back in place, and Levita has the job of taking a team that has floundered for a couple dozen years now and whiping them back into shape.

Paul Levitz was the publisher of DC Comics.  He has a large collection of whips.

In a single 48-page issue, Paul does the following:

Creates almost a dozen new characters (tho to be fair, several of them may be dead already)

Restarts the Green Lantern Corps by recreating the event that gave it its start in the first place.

Hands a Power Ring to literally the last character anyone would have expected, all the while playing fair about who it would be.

Destroys the homeworld of one of the Legionnaires, and in a way that doesn't make it feel like a cheap death at all.

Slips in the first major reference to the upcoming Flash event "Flashpoint" in a perfectly logical way.

Sets up no less than five plot threads for future use.

He could have started off by picking up on any of the threads Geoff Johns laid out.  He picked up exactly one (the new GL member)  and took it in a way I'm dead positive Geoff never thought of, made passing reference to another couple, and just went off on his own.

Yildray Cinar (a name that sounds more like a character FROM Legion, not that of  its artist) knocks it out of the park with a plethora of new character designs, solid story telling and only three splash-pages in the entire book.  And one of those is so choked with action that it's really more a multi-panel page without borders.  Awesome work.  His covers were a mere taste of what he can do.

I swear to you, if this book doesn't become a juggernaut, I will lose all faith in comics fans.

Read More